


to be young was very heaven

by incanadian



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2018-2019 NHL Season, Calgary Flames, Hockey, Hockey Injuries, Light Angst, M/M, National Hockey League, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 14:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18942442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incanadian/pseuds/incanadian
Summary: Moments from 2018-2019 season. From Johnny G’s view.





	to be young was very heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative title:  
> We’ll never be those kids again
> 
> Mentions of surgeries and injuries.
> 
> This is fiction. Resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental

“If you’re too hurt to play, you shouldn’t be playing,” Johnny said.  
“Thanks Mom,” Sean replied.  
The deflection made Johnny see red briefly. Sudden anger made him blurt out: “Fucking stop! There’s no way you should have missed that one timer. You would’ve gotten that a couple weeks ago, every time.”  
He went past the line of their usual teasing. That couldn’t be helped. Losing had a way of straining good things.  
Sean looked right at him then. Silence. He looked weak.  
“As long as the coach wants to play me, I’ll keep playing,” Sean said.

***  
the beginning

After the closing of a disappointing season - another one - Johnny flies back home and tries to forget for a while. He’s getting good at that. Less soul crushing than the year before, if that’s any comfort. It was easy to forget, anyway, since his dad could use so much of his attention this summer.  
For a while, Johnny even forgets that Sean is preparing for surgeries.  
Johnny is visiting his dad in the hospital when he sees Sean being pushed in a wheelchair down the hallway. Johnny debates himself on whether he should wave or not. It takes him a full second to realise Sean is nowhere near New Jersey. The young man in a wheelchair has a similar set of eyebrows and almost the same hair.  
The real Sean should be going into the surgery room this week. His wrist will be opened up, rearranged inside, reset again. Sean’s hips and groin also needed repair, Johnny knew that much. He imagines, not for the first time, Sean’s body opened up by an impersonal scalpel like the dead frog he cut open in high school bio and it’s a sudden queasy fear.

“How is Sean doing?” Johnny’s mom asks as Johnny is putting dishes in the dishwasher after dinner.  
“I don’t know. I haven’t asked him yet.”  
He keeps his eyes on the dishes. He really didn’t want to discuss Sean’s health right now, with his mom of all people. She loves Sean, of course she does.  
Johnny thinks of calling. Sean should be finished with his surgeries by now. It’s what a decent friend would do. It’s probably what random coworkers would do.  
Johnny thinks of not calling. If there is some fuck up in surgery, if Sean’s body is maybe too broken to be fixed by doctors. The possibility of grief he isn’t prepared to handle. Not thinking about it makes it easier to function. So he doesn’t call.

Johnny goes to Worlds with Team USA. There are a few friendly faces from previous tournaments (even though Kev and Noah aren’t around). Almost feels like a fresh start. Everyone is out of the playoffs. There are enough new guys, new friendships to be formed, that Johnny can stop thinking about Sean Monahan for a while.

September always feels like going back to school. The team starts filing in to Calgary, and Johnny is one of the first ones back. His condo looks the same as when he left it, just with more dust.  
After unpacking, Johnny drives to Winsport for a pre-season skate Gio texted him about the day before. He is walking through the parking lot when he sees Sean. Sean sees Johnny too, and grins.  
“Hey!” Sean calls out to him. And it’s perfectly fine. They are good friends. Maybe there is nothing to forgive.

Training camp starts again. Almost the same as usual, except for the fact that it’s in China. An almost neverending plane ride away.  
Every year, Johnny thinks he will get more used to the fact that the team is not the same as last year. Every single year so far, the absences still get at him. Steeger, Ferly, Dougie, everyone who’s left. Fuck.  
New coach. New linemates.  
Elias Lindholm. Possible new right wing to slot in beside Johnny and Monny. Johnny is starting to lose track of the succession of candidates.  
Lindholm is almost too easy to like. Looks and talks like a serious Swede, all business, until something makes him smile with the joy of a puppy. In practice, Johnny notices the easy chemistry already building between them when Lindholm is tried on their line.  
In practice, Johnny also watches Sean. His movements. His stride. His wrists especially. Sean nails a wrister in shootout practice, so Johnny allows himself a slight relief in his secret heart.

Sean kept saying Winston was lonely and wanted a dog friend. He finally manages to convince Johnny to get a golden doodle too: Johnny names her Bailey. They walk to the dog park together while Calgary weather still permits these things. Sean is as excited as he ever gets. (They haven’t hung out together as much this year compared to the last.)  
He throws out a ball and yells: “Winston! Go get it!”  
Johnny watches Sean play catch with Winston for a moment. Sean looks his age when he laughs - like any twenty-something dude - a lot more carefree than he is on the ice.  
These years have worn this man - the thought briefly bubbles up for no reason before Johnny shoves it away.

Lindy became a friend to Johnny and Sean surprisingly quickly. He also became what their line needed so quickly that Johnny finds himself not missing Ferly very much, at least not as much as he used to, a realization that carried some fading guilt.

Insane goals. They keep coming. Johnny’s line is clicking together, and it is almost magic.  
Another tic-tac-toe. The puck connects tape-to-tape between Monny and Lindy, then to Johnny. Johnny waits, patient, before snapping it top shelf.  
The crowd in Vancouver lets out a collective groan in disappointment. Johnny Gaudreau is yelling too loudly to notice.  
“Are you fucking kidding me?? Are you fucking kidding me?!” He can’t stop himself. Sean’s face mirroring his as they embrace, his white mouthguard making his boyish smile even more enormous.

Johnny just finished ordering cheese pizza from room service when he hears Sean laughing behind him.  
“Lindy and I look like baby birds.” Sean hands Johnny his phone. It’s a montage of Johnny squirting purple gatorade after goals. Johnny cracks up at the clip. He didn’t know he squirted gatorade right into Sean’s nose. The camera zooms out to show Sean giving him a furious side glare.

New year’s eve, they beat the Sharks resoundingly. Top of the west. Johnny is getting forwarded Hart speculation by his friends. Kevin sends Johnny articles about the Flames’ dynamic duo/trio, filled with terrible puns. Flames. Hot. Ha ha.  
Kev texts him: _I better be in the wedding party._  
Johnny half-heartedly chirps Kevin back and tells him to make the playoffs first.

“You really fanned on that one Monny,” Johnny says, once they’re alone in the hotel room. Joking with a bit of vicious bite.  
“You’re the one missing that open net man,” Sean replies, not missing a beat. This is their usual shooting the shit.  
Johnny sits in the chair by the desk, swiveling back and forth. He looks at Sean, who’s sitting on the bed and looking at his phone. Careful, casually broach Sean’s defence while he’s distracted. Johnny slows his swiveling chair.  
“Your wrist bothering you?”  
Sean doesn’t look up, doesn’t do anything but look down at his phone. “No.”  
Silence. Sean stops scrolling his thumb on the phone screen. Johnny waits.  
“My finger is kind of off.” Sean says, pausing, “I’ll have time to rest it during break.”  
“Have you told John yet?” Johnny asks. John is their trainer, has been for years.  
Sean looks up at Johnny briefly before looking down again.  
“No. Not yet. I’ll see after break.”  
Johnny knows Sean hasn’t told anyone on the team. Johnny also knows that if he continues in this direction, Sean will say something about not making excuses for his bad plays. Johnny doesn’t know if he can handle that right now without grabbing Sean’s shoulders and thrashing him. Room service thankfully interrupts.

It’s just a game. An almost sacrilegious thought in their line of work.  
A game that happens to be most of Johnny’s life. He doesn’t know what he would do otherwise. But still, a game. He’s not sure if he could play through the pain that Sean did, for a game.  
“We gotta get pucks deep... their backchecking is really strong…” Sean Monahan is talking, nay, droning to the reporters before the game tonight, with a really impressive poker face.  
Later Sean is smiling and chatting with Smitty about their dogs as they put on all the padding. In the moment he reminds Johnny of a knight. Not the team Knights. A knight like the namesake in Don Quixote, which Johnny had struggled through for a college class before falling back to Cliff’s Notes.  
A knight putting on armor. Foolish things fighting for other people’s fancy. When really they are more gladiators seeking bloodshed.

***  
“I can’t just stop playing. I have - I ca-,” Sean stutters uncharacteristically. It’s very strange, to hear him speak like this, when Johnny is so used to his usual droning way of speech.  
Johnny hates it. This week. This conversation. Stinks like something’s died, as his grandpa says. A sinking feeling, somehow worse than yet another loss tonight.

Johnny and Sean play cards on the plane ride home. It’s routine. Sean always has to do something to keep his mind off of the fact that they might fall and die.  
Sean winces as he tweaks his hand, when he thinks Johnny isn’t looking. Johnny puts down a pair and pretends.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't do much fact-checking for this so there are definitely inaccuracies. If you notice just think of it as an AU.  
> I might make edits or add to this. I keep thinking I'm done with it but I also keep wanting to add more details.  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
